Who Are To Judge?

As I think about what Paul told the Jews in Romans 2:17-3:31, I cannot help but think how does this impact how I live, what about today’s church.  I am by no means perfect I’m still working on being a better husband, friend, co-worker, and pastor.  I say all this because what I am about to say may offend some people and I am ok with that, it most likely won’t offend most though.  But I have a feeling that Paul’s letter to the Romans offended some people but not most.  If we notice as Paul talks to Jews he points out that they are not perfect, that they are indeed hypocrites for not being able to follow the law, yet criticizing others who are not Jews and judging them.  What law is Paul talking about?  He talking about the Law that God gave Moses on Mt. Sanai the code that the Jews were to live, the Ten Commandments are a summary of the God’s Law.  Let us go just a bit further, if you recall there are also ceremonial laws with how the Jews were to worship to God.  These ceremonial laws are no longer needed with the death and resurrection of Christ; we are cleansed from our sins by way of the Blood.  So anytime Paul talks about the law he is talking about the ten commandments.

In these Verses Paul calls out the Jews about how they condemn the gentiles and yet they too are also sinners (read Romans 2:17-29).  He tells them because they think they know the law it is for you to teach them how wrong they are, then ask them what good is teaching if you don’t follow it yourself.   He says to them; “The Jewish ceremony of circumcision is worth something only if you obey God’s law. But if you don’t obey God’s law, you are no better off than an uncircumcised Gentile. And if the Gentiles obey God’s law, won’t God give them all the rights and honors of being his own people?” (Romans 2:25-26) This is what got to me how many of us are acting like the self-righteous Jews? How many of us are looking down on people saying I’m better than they are because I go to church and I know that what they do is wrong.  Yet we completely ignore what is wrong in our own lives, we ignore the fact that we are to be humbling ourselves in prayer to a Holy God, we ignore that we accept some sins yet others we harp on as if they are worse than others.   What if I told you that we are called to live out God’s love, forgive those who have wronged us, and we are not to judge others, if they are not believer’s.  Christ even warned his followers about this.  “Stop judging others, and you will not be judged.  For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged.  And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)

How many times have you judged others, how many times have you said “at least I’m not as bad as”, or just looked down on someone?  How is this living out the commands of God?  We are not called by God to place judgment on this world, we are called by God to seek out God and proclaim His love for others.  I feel that we are going to be much more effective as a Church if we begin to reject sin as being ok, all sin, and stop focusing on just one or two sins.  we as individual’s really need to begin to focus on our relationship with God and live a life that reflects that.  Paul told the people in romans 2:28-29, “For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the Jewish ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not a cutting of the body but a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. Whoever has that kind of change seeks praise from God, not from people.”  How many of us are living to please others, or even living to please ourselves?  We need to realize that we are all sinners, Paul explains in chapter three how the more we understand the Law, the more we realize that we are sinners.  But that there is hope, that Christ took our punishment, we only need to accept the gift.  We did not earn this; we cannot redeem ourselves.  We must stop looking at others and judging them, and start looking and digging into God’s word, seeking out God in prayer, sincerely asking for God to give us understanding of His law, and working toward living out a life that brings glory and praise to God.